Martin Johnson

Founder/Advisor

Marty Johnson is the Founder/Advisor of Isles, Inc., an urban sustainable development organization that fosters self-reliance and healthy neighborhoods. Founded in 1981, Isles arose from a student-initiated seminar and thesis at Princeton University.

Isles has received awards from the U.S. EPA, the White House, the United Nations, and numerous other organizations. Isles work includes community planning and green real estate development, wealth creation, environmental health, urban agriculture, education for under-served high school drop-outs and job-training. Increasingly, Isles provides technical and organizing assistance to policymakers and groups across the state and beyond.

Mr. Johnson co-founded other development organizations and projects, including: New Jersey Community Capital, Housing and Community Development Network of NJ, Building One New Jersey and the Success Measures Project, a national effort to develop impact measures for community-building work.

Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, Marty is a 1981 graduate and former trustee of Princeton University, where he played football and baseball. In 1996, he taught “Rethinking Poverty: Community Development Research and Policy” at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

From 2015-2019, Marty developed and taught social entrepreneurship courses at Princeton University, titled, “Rethinking Social Profit Organizations” and “So, You Want to Change the World?” He is now Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Teacher at Lafayette College’s Dyer Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.